Of course I wanted to say yes; and, of course, after this, I did say yes without further parleying.
"Now begins the most critical time in this adventure of yours. Don Ramon,"
the Cherub went on. "You see, as our place is only five miles outside Seville, we know many people; and though Carmona is seldom there with his mother, he certainly has acquaintances, and some of them may be ours too.
You have travelled since Burgos as my son, though you wore his uniform only for two days; but you may be sure Carmona has been looking forward to shaking you off, once and for all, if you should venture to Seville to see the show of _Semana Santa_ as other tourists see it."
"He perhaps thinks that, because of our promise-which we"ve kept-he"s shaken Ramon off already," said d.i.c.k.
"He knows better. The trick answered for a few hours; but his car broke down, and he had to accept our help. He said then that fate was against him; I heard it; and Carmona"s a man to be actually superst.i.tious about you, now. So far, he"s kept the little senorita out of touch with you, but that"s nearly all he has accomplished."
"Thanks to you both," I cut in. "If it hadn"t been for your help, I should have been "pinched," and hustled over the border long ago. I see that now; and though I should have come back and begun the chase again somehow, it would have been a thousand times more difficult."
"No use bothering about what _might_ have happened," laughed Pilar. "Let"s think of what did happen-and what will."
"Nevertheless," said I, "the thought"s often in my mind; what if we had missed Colonel and Miss O"Donnel at Burgos?"
d.i.c.k chuckled; and when Pilar wanted to know what amused him, asked my permission to tell. I gave him leave; and with a memory for detail which I could have spared, to say nothing of an attempt at mimicry, he repeated, word for word, my objections to meeting the Irish friends of Angele de la Mole.
We were so intimate now that my point of view before knowing them did seem particularly comic, and d.i.c.k made the most of it.
"Well, think what we have to thank you for!" exclaimed Pilar; "this delightful trip. If it hadn"t been for you, Cristobal would be here instead of with Angele in Biarritz."
"Come back to common sense," implored the Cherub, "and help me plan for the Cristobal who is here. If he sits in our box for the processions, Carmona will see him and say to some officious person, very different from Rafael Calmenare, "who is that young man with the O"Donnels?" And the officious person will answer, "I never saw him in my life." "Ah," the Duke will exclaim, "isn"t he Cristobal O"Donnel?" "Not at all," will come the reply; and Carmona will proceed to make trouble."
"For you as well as for me; that"s the worst of it," said I.
"We care nothing for that. It"s of you we think," said the Cherub. And because I knew it was true, more than ever it became my duty to think of him and his.
"Of course I don"t want to lose any chance of seeing Monica," I said; "but on the days of the processions I shall walk about in the crowd and keep out of Carmona"s way."
"As for us," said Pilar, "we"ll try for a box near the Duke"s-though there may be nothing left, as the King"s to be here and there"s sure to be a crowd. I"ll do my best to whisper to Lady Monica, or send her a note, or speak with my eyes if no more."
"You know how I depend on you," I answered. "She may give you a letter, an answer to one which I hope she got at Manzanares."
"I"ll be ready for the lightest hint," said Pilar. "If she has a note for you, she"ll show it behind her fan. Then I"ll motion her to crumple it up and throw it on the floor as she goes out. If you don"t appear in our society, the Duke will think perhaps that after all he"s safe."
"No. We mustn"t count on any such thing," broke in her father. "If he can"t get rid of you in one way, he"ll try another; and there"s an old saying which is still true: anything can happen in Spain, especially in the south. Carmona will be watching for you. You must be prepared for that."
"I shall be," I said.
"We"ll all be," Pilar finished. "Oh, there"s the old Roman aqueduct! Isn"t it splendid; and strong as if it had been built yesterday instead of in the days before the Goths. I love Seville-love every brick and stone of it, from the ruins of the Moorish wall and the Torre del Oro, and the glorious cathedral, to the old house in the Callo del Candilejo, where the witch-woman looked out and saw King Don Pedro fighting his duel. I don"t believe any other place could make up to me for Seville."
By the side of the two-thousand-years-old-aqueduct ran a modern electric tramway; and one of the graceful arches made by Roman hands had been widened to let pa.s.s the railway line for Madrid. Farther on, Moorish houses with lofty miradors and beautiful capped windows were tucked between ugly new buildings, and across the shaded avenue of a green park was flung an extraordinary, four-winged spiral staircase of iron. I groaned at the monstrosity, saying that Pedro himself had never perpetrated an act more cruel; and the Cherub excused it sadly, by saying that it was convenient for the crowds to pa.s.s from one side of the street to the other, as I should see if I stayed beyond the _Semana Santa_ for the _feria_.
"Look at the Giralda, and you"ll forget the iron bridge," said Pilar. My eyes followed hers, and lit like winging birds upon a beautiful tower soaring delicately against the sky. So light, so fragile in effect was it, I felt that it might lean upon a cloud. In the golden light of afternoon the little pillars of old marble, the carved lozenges of stone, the arches of the horseshoe windows, the dainty carvings of the balconies, and all the marvellous ornamentation that broke the square surfaces of the tower, were rosy as if with reflections from a sunset sky. Its beauty was a Moorish poem in brick-work, such as no other hands save Moorish hands have ever made.
I looked back until I lost sight of the Giralda, except the glittering figure of Faith on the top (strange symbol for a weather-vane), while threading through tortuous streets, mere strips of pavement veiled with blue shadow, and walled with secretive, flat-fronted houses, old and new, pearly with fresh whitewash, or painted pale lemon, faded orange, or a green ethereal as the tints of seaweed. Even at first sight the quaint town was singularly lovable, in its mingling of simplicity and mystery, and as Spanish in this mixture as in all things else.
The tall, straight palms, with their tufted heads like falling fountains, clear against the sky, were Oriental, and seemed scarcely kin to the palms of Italy and Southern France. Nor were the narrow streets, through which we pounded over cobbles, like the narrow streets of Italian towns. They were Spanish; inexplicably but wholly Spanish, although d.i.c.k was not sure they did not recall bits of Venice, "just as you turn away from St.
Mark"s."
It was odd that shops so small could be so gay and attractive as these with their rows of painted fans, their draped mantillas, their bright sashes, foolish little tambourines, castanets tied with rosettes of ribbon in Spanish colours; their curious and vivid antique jewelry; their _sombreros cordobeses_ displayed in the same windows with silk hats from Bond Street; their flaming flowers, Moorish pottery, old lace, and cabinets of inlaid ebony and silver. And I knew that I should learn to love the sounds of Seville better than the sounds of London or other cities I had seen.
Haunting sounds they were, these noises of a closely peopled old town, characteristic as those of Naples, not so strident as in Madrid; above all, the sound of bells, ringing, booming, chiming, so continuously that soon they would affect the senses like a heavy perfume always present. One would cease to hear them, and be startled only if their clamouring tongues were silenced.
In the streets, where the processions of _Semana Santa_ would pa.s.s, already hundreds of rush-bottomed chairs were ranged in front of houses and shops, piled in confusion, which would be reduced to order for to-morrow, Palm Sunday. Beyond, in the Plaza de la Const.i.tucion-scene in old days of the bull-fight and _auto-da-fe_,-many men were busy putting the last touches on the crimson velvet and gold draperies of the royal box, pounding barriers into place in the tribune in front of the silver-like chasing of the Casa del Ayuntamiento"s Plateresque facade, or arranging row after row of chairs in the open s.p.a.ce opposite, leaving an aisle for the procession to pa.s.s between.
"Now there is something to do before we drive home to the Cortijo de Santa Rufina," said the Cherub. "I must see about getting a box in the tribune for the week; I must find out whether Carmona did come in by train last night. Don Ramon hasn"t suggested this plan, but I think he would not dislike it."
"I meant to drop out of the car, to see what I could learn myself, and join you afterwards at home," I said. "But you can get hold of things better than I, a stranger, can."
"You must remain a stranger," he supplemented my words. "If your chauffeur will stop at the top of this narrow street, I"ll walk down it a few doors to my club, and ask for the latest news. Carmona doesn"t honour his house in Seville too often with his presence, though his mother is here every season, and his arrival will be the talk of the club. I can take steps too, about a box for the show. I won"t keep you long; but you"d better wait at the Cafe Perla. Pilar can"t go there without me. Oh, you may smile; but remember we"re in Spain. She must wait at the house of a friend."
The Cherub"s idea of a "little while" and a "long while" were always rather vague, and apt to dovetail confusingly one into another; but knowing what it was his aim to accomplish, I did not grudge the fifty minutes before his ample form and smiling face appeared in the doorway of the cafe.
"It"s all right," were his first words. "I felt my luck wouldn"t desert me. Who do you suppose"-and he turned to Pilar, who had come on with him-"was the first man I ran across? No other than Don Esteban Villaroya."
Pilar looked a little frightened. "But he"s a friend of the Duke"s. Won"t that make it awkward?"
"No; all the better. I told him Cristobal and my daughter and I had motored from Burgos with an American friend, an important writer for the papers, who was going to pay us a visit. Not an untrue word to trouble my confessor with. Don Esteban may or may not mention our meeting to Carmona when he dines with him this evening."
"Dines with him? Oh, I hope that won"t make mischief."
"It won"t. Carmona arrived late last night, with his mother and guests. It seems preparations have been going on in the house for the past fortnight; and the first thing Carmona and his mother did was to send out half a dozen invitations for dinner this evening. Afterwards, he managed, probably through royal influence, to get permission from the Governor to take the party into the Alcazar by moonlight, and he"s going to have coloured illuminations, music, and Spanish dances given by professionals in the costumes of different provinces. A grand idea, Don Esteban thinks."
"But why is he doing it?" asked Pilar, thoughtfully. "Maria purisima! It isn"t as if he were an impulsive or hospitable man, fond of getting up impromptu entertainments. This is done in a hurry. What can be his object?
for he always has an object."
"To amuse Lady Monica, who"s not pleased with him so far," explained the Cherub. "And as he"s a good Catholic, at least in appearance, to-night or the night after will be his last chance to entertain till _Semana Santa_ is over."
"Somehow, I don"t feel that"s reason enough," said Pilar, looking so troubled that I felt new stirrings of anxiety, and must have shown it; for Pilar exclaimed that she was a "little beast" to worry me.
"You haven"t worried me," I protested. "Still, I think I"ll go to that entertainment at the Alcazar."
Pilar and her father stared. "I see what you mean," said the girl. "You hope to walk in and meet Lady Monica. But you can"t, because the Alcazar"s closed to the public after sunset. It will only be open for the Duke as a favour, because he"s rich and important, and care will be taken that no outsider slips in."
"If there should be one more guitarist than he hired, do you think it would be noticed?" I asked, smiling.
Pilar clapped her hands. "You"re a true lover, Don Ramon," she exclaimed.
"_Ay de mi!_ n.o.body will ever love a little dark thing like myself, as Lady Monica is loved. I must be satisfied with the affections of my relations, and a few others, I suppose." Great eyes lifted sadly ceiling-ward as she spoke, then cast down with distracting play of long curled lashes. Spanish after all to her finger-tips, this Maria del Pilar Ines, despite her Irish quickness. Poor d.i.c.k!
"You believe I could manage it, then?"
"I believe you _will_. Senor Waring has told me about the masked ball, and how you played Romeo to somebody"s Juliet."
"The difficulty will be to get hold of the _impresario_."
Pilar looked at her watch. "They"ll know at the Alcazar who"s been engaged. There"s an hour and a half yet before closing time."
"What if you and I take a stroll through?" suggested d.i.c.k.